# The New Great Game

By [DYLIT Chronicles](https://dylit.info/user/dylitmediabuzz)

[GeoPulse](https://dylit.info/pr/geopulse/6a4e89c325b94158fd865a00) > [The New Great Game](https://dylit.info/ch/the-new-great-game/6a4e89c325b94158fd865a34)

The New Space Race Goes Nuclear Why Put a Reactor on the Moon? A lunar night lasts about two Earth weeks. Solar panels go dark, batteries drain, and surface temperatures plunge far below freezing. Near the south pole, where water ice hides in permanently shadowed craters, steady sunlight is even harder to come by. That ice is the prize. It can be turned into drinking water, breathable oxygen and rocket propellant, a practice known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). NASA describes fission power working alongside solar cells, batteries and fuel cells to run rovers, support experiments, and process lunar resources into water, propellant and other supplies. A compact reactor can keep doing that for years without refueling, which is why every major lunar program now has one on its roadmap. Who's Building What In January 2026, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy signed a memorandum of understanding that includes developing a lunar surface reactor by 2030. It follows an August 2025 push in which NASA fast-tracked the effort and sought proposals for a 100-kilowatt reactor, roughly enough to power 80 homes. The directive behind that push warned that the first nation to place a reactor on the Moon might be able to declare a keep-out zone that would hamper rivals. On the other side, China and Russia agreed in May 2025 to jointly complete a lunar reactor by 2036, intended to power their International Lunar Research Station. These plans are official. Whether the dates hold is less certain, and critics note that the U.S. still lacks a final reactor design and firm plans for a lunar base. What Could Go Wrong Start with what's confirmed. Lunar reactor concepts are designed to launch cold, without radioactive elements active, until operations begin on the surface. Fresh uranium fuel is only mildly radioactive. The truly dangerous fission products build up after the reactor starts running. So a launch failure or crash landing before startup would most likely scatter fuel and debris over a limited area. That's a cleanup and handling problem, but it's nowhere near a Chernobyl-scale event. The harder scenario, and this is a projection, involves a reactor that has already operated for years. A lander or stray rocket stage could hit it, a component could fail, or a meteoroid could strike. A reactor can't detonate like a bomb, but a high-speed impact or severe overheating could breach the core. On the Moon there's no wind or rain to disperse or wash material away. Debris would fly ballistically and then stay put. The likely result is a contaminated patch that crews avoid for years, a de facto no-go zone. If it sat near prized ice deposits, the scientific and economic loss could be significant. What History Tells Us Space nuclear accidents have happened. In 1964, a U.S. navigation satellite carrying a SNAP-9A plutonium generator failed to reach orbit and burned up, releasing plutonium into the upper atmosphere. In 1978, the Soviet reactor-powered satellite Kosmos 954 scattered radioactive debris across northern Canada. On the other hand, Apollo 13's plutonium generator survived reentry intact and rests in the Pacific's Tonga Trench, showing that robust containment can work. Landing itself remains unreliable. Israel's Beresheet and India's Vikram crashed in 2019. Russia's Luna-25 crashed in 2023. Japan's ispace crashed in 2023 and crashed again during a touchdown attempt in June 2025. Astrobotic's first lander missed the Moon entirely in 2024 and fell back through Earth's atmosphere. In 2025, Intuitive Machines' Athena landed sideways in a crater and was declared dead, while Firefly's Blue Ghost became the first private spacecraft to complete a fully successful touchdown. China's Chang'e landers and India's Chandrayaan-3 also succeeded. And in August 2026, a spent Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon unintentionally, leaving a crater estimated at 20 to 30 metres across. The pattern is clear. Precise landings are still far from routine, and the U.S. plan assumes a heavy lander able to deliver 15 metric tons, a class of vehicle that hasn't flown to the Moon yet. Weighing It Up The case for lunar fission is strong. Without it, long-term bases and ice mining look impractical. The risks are real, but most are manageable through design: cold launches, tough fuel casings, siting reactors well away from landing zones and ice fields, and open safety reporting under the UN's 1992 principles on nuclear power sources in space. The bigger danger may be the race itself. Deadlines driven by rivalry tend to squeeze testing, and on the Moon, a mistake could leave a mark that lasts for generations. Sources NASA, "NASA, Department of Energy to Develop Lunar Surface Reactor by 2030": https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-to-develop-lunar-surface-reactor-by-2030 IEEE Spectrum, "China, Russia, and U.S. Race to Develop Lunar Nuclear Reactors": https://spectrum.ieee.org/lunar-nuclear-reactor-nasa-moon Related YouTube Videos Why NASA Wants to Put Nuclear Reactor on the Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqGTTGxIsbY China Is Building a Moon Base With Russia — And They're Putting a Nuclear Reactor on the Surface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgAs7ys39zE USA Vs China Vs Russia - Fight For NUCLEAR Power Plant On THE MOON! #shorts: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xsg20xF-iJA